Dr. Janelle Guirguis-Blake, Family Medicine Faculty
“Point Defiance is a 700-acre city park, one of the largest city parks in the country. Itâs actually what convinced me to move to Tacoma 15 years ago from Washington DC. I am a city person true and true, and loved living in DC and wasnât sure how I could imagine living anywhere else. But it was time to think about other parts of our lives. We had been in the PNW a couple times to go kayaking and hiking and loved it, so we looked here. I still wasnât totally convinced about Tacoma, but when I came here it sort of changed my world view, that I could have this amazing job and working with these amazing people, and also after a long day of work I could be here in 10 minutes and be in a totally different world. When I saw what my future could be⌠this park represents what my future would be, and in fact that has been what my future became; A world with a great family at work and my family at home, where Iâve spent a ton of time outside and where weâve raised our girls.
My mother is a doctor, a general practitioner. My parents both immigrated from Egypt about 50 years ago, so my upbringing is very much influenced by the first-generation experience. As many first-generation immigrants learn, the expectations of your parents plays huge in your life. Seeing that my mom could do it, then come to this country and get her certification and practice, that made it real for me.”
Dr. Elizabeth Karin, TFM Graduate
âI love it here. The pier on the Ruston Waterway is one of my calm, go-to places in Tacoma, because you can see the mountains, you can see the water. Youâre pretty much guaranteed to see seals which I find very exciting. When youâre lucky you can see whales too. There are fish to eat and fish to talk to. Itâs a good spot to sit and read, or sit and look, or have a phone call. It smells good, itâs all the best parts of living in Tacoma. I feel a lot of gratitude. I try to be intentional about it. I do have my gratitude journal, which I started intern year. I actually have three gratitude journals now because I finished them. I try to do it every night before I go to bed. When I sit here, I feel very grateful which is I think why I like this place. I love the clouds in Tacoma. They make me want to learn more about clouds.â
Dr. Kerry Watrin, Family Medicine Faculty
âThese days with Black Lives Matter, you get to thinking about the culture you grew up in⌠I was at the end of the 60âs. Going back to Joseph Campbell; He says âeverybody has their myth thatâs driving youâ. You latch onto that and think thatâs how the world works. You can figure out whatâs your myth event, and you are supposed to figure out what you want to do, and you follow your bliss. That was his advice. I feel like I followed my bliss. But my myth event⌠It was the late 60âs and I went to the world Boy Scouts Jamboree in Farragut, Idaho. Beautiful. We all put up our tents and we would trade badges with people from Brazil and the whole world. It was a âone worldâ feeling. And then one day we all crammed into this one tent to watch this one TV. And it was a man stepping on the moon. They panned back and there was the little blue marble. The One World Myth. But the myth was incomplete. Most of the Boy Scouts were white, and adopting an African American son taught me a lot. And there were no girls there. I am the program director of a predominantly female residency and have been for 10 years. So sometimes you gotta grow. Your myth is too small.